For awhile now, I've been toying with the idea of signing up with a paid blogging service. I don't want to sell out my blog, but I do spend a lot of time mentioning products, services and websites and it would be good to get something back every once in awhile from the companies I'm essentially providing free marketing for.

Some of the blogs I've been reading lately have been members of PayPerPost, which connects advertisers to bloggers in the form of opportunities that members can choose to reserve, write about, and then submit for approval. All of the available opportunites are listed so you can scan through them and pick out ones that you know something about or feel you can write about well enough to satisfy the requirements of the opportunity. If the advertiser approves your post, you get paid. Some of them are totally out of left field, but some I've seen fit what I write about on here anyways, so I signed up. Now that my blog has been approved by PayPerPost, I'm hoping to fit the occasional opportunity into my blog and make a few extra pennies, here and there.

It's a really easy service to use. The site is excellent and simple to navigate around and I was really impressed by the requirements they had of the bloggers. Their Code of Ethics is great. For instance, you can't follow a PPP post with another PPP post - you have to include at least one regular post of your own in between. I like that. It forces you to keep the blog on it's original track. I also like that you don't have to write positive posts. If something sucks, you can post that it sucks. Also, I have to disclose that I may occasionally be blogging for money, which I'll include at the bottom of my sidebar. Follow this link for more information about their blog ethics.

I'm not going to be catapulting my blog into the sales-oriented blogosphere...this blog will continue to do all of the things it was created to do, and it's nice that PPP recognizes my wish to keep it that way. However, it's no secret that I'm pretty focused on saving money these days and working towards some of my goals in a more meaningful and straightforward way. This seemed like a good way to do that, even if on a fairly small level. I'll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime, I encourage you to check them out if you're interested.